Currents; Isak Dinesen's Bouquets

By Mitchell Owens

Published: October 5, 1995

KAREN BLIXEN, the Danish baroness who as Isak Dinesen wrote "Out of Africa," told a friend, "When I am dead, you should make a book about my flower arrangements." More than three decades later, "Karen Blixen's Flowers: Nature and Art at Rungstedlund" (Christian Eilers, $38.50) celebrates Blixen's homemade bouquets. That friend, Steen Eiler Rasmussen, and his co-authors turn Blixen's vases -- photographed from 1953 until her death in 1962 -- into maps of a tumultuous interior world. The result is a lively look at what the book describes as "magnificent, peculiar or ugly" bouquets "created by an artist who was not often vouchsafed peace of mind." There are nifty ideas, too, like combining peonies with leeks, or gladioluses with cabbage leaves. Also worth noting: Blixen's belief that gift bouquets should be rearranged to reflect the recipient's taste, not the florist's. Available at Archivia, 944 Madison Avenue (75th Street); (212) 439-9194.